How do we as Church respond to a heart-tugging statement like "he is our son"?

In the current extraordinary synod on the family that is being held in the Vatican, there has been a noticeable presence of laity who present themselves with their own life experiences on marriage and family life before the many bishops present there.  An Australian couple Ron and Mavis Pirola was one of the six couples chosen for this task, and they presented some advice on how the church should “uphold the truth while expressing compassion and mercy” by giving an example of how their friends dealt with the thorny issue of having a gay son who was bringing his partner home for a Christmas family gathering.  Apparently, this couple (not the Pirolas) said that they knew that their grandchildren would welcome the son and his partner into the family, and that their response could be summed up in four words “He is our son”.

That phrase is a very loaded one which bears deeper reflection.  Seen from the standpoint of compassion and sensitivity, it does seem to have the ability to trivialize or even abrogate all that the Church has taught about the evils of an active same-sex relationship.  Often, such phrases as these are thrown in the face of those who stand courageously and prophetically for Church teachings that call for a stalwart stance for chastity, abstinence and self-denial.  It does appear that because one is one’s own son or a daughter, the Church’s teaching which are undoubtedly difficult and sacrificial, can somehow be either denied or fudged.  In the face of these sentiments, holding on to Church teachings about sacrifice and chastity in an unmitigated way will easily make one appear to be unflinching, cold, and having a mind without having a heart.

The difficulty facing the Church or any authority that stands for truth will always be that of teaching and imparting the truth while at the same time tempering it with a heart and mindfulness of the weaker parties who are often subject to the law of gradualness.  This ‘law’ simply means that there are some folk who seem to be immediately struck with grace and can comprehend and accept truth and Church teachings, whilst others seem to be able to take are rather circuitous route to acceptance, often making many side-trips and stops along life’s highway.  When we seem to be in a rush to have everyone understand and accept Church teachings, we have to also accept that there are people who seem take a much longer time. 

I come back then to the phrase used by the couple that seems to almost bless their son’s choice of having a same-sex partner in life.  “He is our son” appears to be a trump card of sorts. 

Allow me to take you to another scene where a similar phrase was uttered not just by a human parent, but God himself.  When Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan, the heavens, we are told, opened, and a voice was heard “This is my son, the beloved”. 

With the eyes of faith, we need to see just what this is teaching us.  When Jesus spoke about the need to eat the bread that was himself, and many walked away, he must have wondered if this was what it meant to be “God’s son, the beloved”.  When he was in the midst of being betrayed and abandoned in the loneliness of Gethsamane, he must have recalled in that moment of raw aloneness that the Father declared once “This is my son, the beloved”.  When he was scourged and crowned with thorns, hung upon the cross on Calvary and left to die of asphyxiation, surely he must have pondered what it really meant to have God declare “This is my son, the beloved”.

Am I overly graphic?  Perhaps, but it does serve a point.  It brings across that point of connection that we all have as either children of our parents, or of parents of children of our own, when seen in the context of Jesus being the son of God.  Being a son or a daughter must always be seen in the light of what and who Jesus was to the Father.  To only see it as something that gives us a sense of entitlement or privilege is to miss half of what this truth teaches us about life.  The other half is to know that there is a certain selflessness and abandonment that each one of us is called to in life, which life when correctly lived almost necessistates, such that we carry on the sufferings of Christ which have yet to be completed with a redemptive mentality. 

Would that the couple facing the son’s choice of living out his same-sex attraction be as prophetic as they could, they would love the son still, but perhaps not fight shy in making it clear that not all our desires in life are called to be fulfilled, and that some are called to be martyrs without the shedding of a drop of blood.  Would that the son know that he is indeed the offspring of a loving and faithful couple, he would be aware that God does give grace to those who stay close to the cross in life’s journey.  No parent will willingly give his son a stone if he asked for bread, or a snake if he asked for a fish.  But perhaps we should be much more astute in how we approve or ‘bless’ some of the choices that our offspring make, because we may well be giving snakes in stead of fish, and stones in stead of bread.

To say that I am speaking of an ideal or a dream is to say that the Church is idealistic or existing in a dream-like state.  It is not.  The Church is very aware of the pains and struggles of such families, and is also aware that there are countless families who are ill-equipped with the ‘tools of faith’ that gives some counsel and words of truth to handle these situations when they present themselves.  A large part of the problem may well be a linguistic one, where the vocabulary that we use to discuss these sensitive issues serve more to divide than unite, antagonize than to soothe.  It is when our faith wobbles on weakened foundational structures that it doesn’t take much of a rising tide to wash away the little faith that our lives have been built on. 

While it is tempting to confuse mercy with the need to take the hard path of love, we must ensure that we do not fall easily into it. Mercy requires that we, with great charity, look lovingly upon those who make choices that are clearly inordinate as far as God’s will is concerned.  But mercy also requires that we are clear in not making compromises when it comes to truth. 

This great difficulty is itself a cross that many a family will have to carry, albeit with the whole church praying for and with them.